In an effort to stem the risk of heart valve disease, various medical procedures have been developed to repair or replace poorly functioning or stenosed heart valves. In particular, annuloplasty procedures have been used to repair heart valves by way of open heart surgery or, on a more limited basis, by way of less invasive techniques.
Mitral regurgitation is a particular type of heart valve disease wherein the mitral valve fails to sufficiently close, and blood is allowed to backflow across the valve. Consequently, many mitral annuloplasty procedures are designed to make the mitral annulus smaller, particularly in the septal—lateral dimension, allowing the mitral valve leaflets to coapt more effectively and preventing mitral regurgitation.
In some instances, repair of the mitral valve involves placing an annuloplasty ring on the mitral valve. Certain procedures involve suture-based cinching to reshape the mitral valve. In addition, some percutaneous annuloplasty procedures involve placing a rigid structure in the coronary sinus, which is near but not exactly at, the actual location of the mitral annulus. Such procedures can be cumbersome and may not be particularly effective or safe in all patients due to the anatomy of the coronary sinus, the mitral annulus, and the nearby circumflex coronary artery. In particular, coronary sinus devices may not be as effective as surgically placed devices, and crossing of the coronary sinus over the circumflex artery can cause dangerous compression of the artery by an annular cinching device placed in the coronary sinus.
Heretofore, reliable anchoring of an annuloplasty ring at a desirable location has been difficult using percutaneous and less invasive techniques. In addition, some prior attempts have utilized rather stiff structures in order to obtain the required shape and support for the valve. Consequently, there is a need for an annuloplasty procedure and device that overcomes the problems associated with prior approaches and devices.
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Without limiting the scope of the invention a brief summary of some of the claimed embodiments of the invention is set forth below. Additional details of the summarized embodiments of the invention and/or additional embodiments of the invention may be found in the Detailed Description of the Invention below.
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